THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



a live one except for certain chemical changes. That 

 this is not an exaggeration of the problem as it pre- 

 sented itself to the biological evolutionists can be seen 

 from the opinion of Huxley: "Remarkable as are the 

 powers or, in other words, as are the FORCES which 

 are exerted by living beings, yet all these forces are 

 either identical with those which exist in the inor- 

 ganic world, or they are convertible into them."^ The 

 biologists naturally used the methods of the older 

 sciences and indeed we know no other practice, at 

 least of measurement, except in terms of mechanical 

 quantities. But, they overlooked the fact that while 

 physical forces and energy may satisfactorily explain 

 the phenomena of matter, they may not be adequate 

 to account for those phenomena of matter to which 

 has been added the attribute of life. 



There is a widespread belief, particularly amongst 

 men of science, that the opposition to Galileo in the 

 seventeenth century was directed against the phys- 

 ical sciences themselves. This is not true. Public opin- 

 ion was then, and is now, singularly indifferent to 

 scientific theories so long as they are restricted to their 

 own field. Interest is aroused, which inevitably drifts 

 into active hostility, only in the cases when a new 

 discovery or theory threatens to affect directly the 

 social and ethical habits and aspirations of society. 



3 Collected Essays: Darwiniana, p. 316. The reader should consult 

 the whole of Essay XI. 



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